As I opened my door to go to the bathroom in the morning, I was feeling a little groggy and tired. I just didn't want to wake up that morning, but I did. There were no classes yet since the holiday was still on. Maybe it was the dinner I went to the night before. I don't know. The important thing to note is that I was just out of it.

Before I could get to the washroom, Mr. Fisher bursted out of his door and belting out a song in this low, scratchy and simply annoying voice. Then I recognized what he was singing: "Happy Birthday to you, ..." Oh my goodness. It's my birthday...and the singing is so...so...bad. I just covered my head with my face cloth and retreated to my room. I can't believe this is happening to me. (No offense, Brian)

Well, I eventually recovered and went to brush my teeth, wash my face and stuff. My birthday, my first birthday in China. Another year older? Yes. Another year wiser? We'll see. Now, I had a scratchy baritone knocking on my ears. I guess that's why I didn't mention it to my hosts the night before. Avoid embarassment for me and for them. They were already treating me to dinner, that was enough for me.

Brian had gifts all ready for me, too. Yikes! I don't think I've ever received gifts this early in the morning. I could tell they were CDs from the shape of the gifts. The first one I opened was an Andy Lau CD. He's a famous Hong Kong singer for those of you who don't know. He's labelled as one of the 4 gods of HK pop music. It's a great gift. The whole CD is in Mandarin except for 2 songs. It's good for me to try to pick up more of the language. One of the other songs is in Cantonese and the last one is in a Guangdong province dialect called ToySan, or TaiShan (jbondjr, you'd have a field day with that song I'm sure). The other two gifts were not just regular CDs though. They were VCDs (Video CDs). They were both Star Trek movies. It was First Contact and Insurrection.

Later, just before lunch, the College English Centre dropped off a cake for me. That was amazing and very much appreciated. It was a very thoughtful gift on their part. So the teachers gathered for lunch and we ate it afterwards. In fact, I still have some pieces left. I hope they haven't gone bad yet.

Also at lunch, the teachers, of course, sang a very un-unified version of Happy Birthday. It's the thought that counts, right? Brian is good at drawing so he made a birthday card for me. Here it is in fact, just click the picture and you'll see it in it's full glory.

And just when you thought the fun was over, I still had a dinner later at night. Our host is a Chinese WuShu expert and she was very gracious. Four of the teachers went. The other teachers were her students, but not me; however, she still invited me to go. The dinner was amazing. We had like 8 dishes of appetizer and then came the hot pot. Let me tell you, I was stuffed. What a dinner?

So that was October 6, 1999. That'll go down in the annals of history. Okay, maybe not, but it was a great day.

I'd also like to extend my thanks to those who remembered my birthday and sent electronic greetings. Everything is much appreciated. If you didn't send anything, don't worry. I wanted to keep things low key anyway. Take care y'all.